Tis the Season – Why Winter is the Best Time to Plant Trees and Shrubs

With cold temperatures having arrived in the Panhandle last week, we’re finally getting close to prime landscape planting season.  But why is winter the best time to install landscape trees and shrubs?  Shouldn’t we plant when things are leafed out and growing?  While it’s counterintuitive to think bitter cold, dreary days are significantly better to plant landscape plants in than the warm, sunny days of summer, it’s usually true!  Let’s explore why winter is the time to plant woody trees and shrubs and then look at some of the best woody plants no Panhandle landscape should be without.

Most people from elsewhere think that Florida is always lush, green, and tropical.  Those people have clearly never been to the Panhandle – heck it snowed last year!  Our region of Florida has more in common, climate wise, with the rest of the south – subtropical with long hot, humid summers and wet, mild winters (though rain has been hard to come by recently), occasionally wracked by intense cold fronts.  Because of those cold fronts, tropical plants cannot survive, and woody plants enter a dormant stage where above ground growth ceases.  This cold-forced dormant season is the perfect time to plant woody plants because the planting process is stressful (the root system is purposefully damaged to remove circling and J-shaped roots and encourage outward growth) and regular rainfall and cool temps means conditions are right for plants to get a solid root system re-established before growth and transpiration begins in the heat of spring/summer.

Now that you know why we plant woody landscape plants when we do, let’s select a few quintessential, versatile Florida-Friendly trees and shrubs (2 each, one native and one non-native) to install in our landscapes this planting season.

Nuttall Oak  (Quercus texana) is one of the most adaptable landscape trees around.  The species is tolerant of many soil types, native to moist bottomland areas but tolerating drier spots well once established.  While it’s a large tree – up to 70-80’ tall, I find its rounded upright habit to often be more in scale with landscapes than the wide spreading Live Oak (Quercus virginiana). Nuttall Oak certainly has many positive attributes (tough, wind-resistant, pollinator friendly, etc), but its fall color is probably my favorite.  For the Panhandle it is quite good, delivering autumnal hues of red and orange.

It’s not North Carolina Sugar Maple color but Nuttall Oak possesses attractive foliage. Photo courtesy of Daniel Leonard.

Crape Myrtle (Lagerstroemia indica) is the most widely grown landscape tree in the South for good reason!  They’re tough, widely adapted, offer excellent summertime flower displays, and possess interesting architecture and unique bark.  The primary consideration with Crape Myrtle is simply picking the right one.  Do you need an upright, compact tree?  Choose ‘Sioux’ or ‘Apalachee’.  Do you want a big crape that can double as a small shade tree?  Choose ‘Natchez’ or ‘Muskogee’.  Do you want a new dwarf variety or one with black foliage?  There’s now plenty of those to choose from as well.  There’s truly a Crape Myrtle for every yard.

Oakleaf Hydrangea (Hydrangea quercifolia) is a wonderful native flowering deciduous shrub that’s at home in all Panhandle landscapes.  It prefers moist soil with a little afternoon shade but can tolerate most conditions thrown at it.  Growing 5-7’ in height, sporting footlong white flower panicles each summer, and beautiful foliage each fall, Oakleaf Hydrangea is a must.  You can find unnamed seedlings of the species or look for named varieties such as ‘Snow Queen’, ‘Semmes Beauty’, and ‘Alice’.  In my experience, you can’t go wrong with any of them.

Camellia Sasanqua is without a doubt my favorite fall flowering shrub.  Impossibly durable (it’s common to find specimens over 100 years old), incredibly beautiful in flower and form, and coming in all shapes, sizes, and flower color, a Sasanqua of some kind belongs in ever yard.  A few of my favorites are ‘Leslie Ann’ (upright form, white/pink bicolored flowers), ‘Shi Shi Gashira’ (dwarf that makes an excellent informal hedge), and ‘Yuletide’ (compact plant with red flowers & showy gold stamens).

So, as the weather continues to be mild with those cold front swings occasionally and rain begins to be more regular, think about getting some woody trees and shrubs planted into your landscape this winter.  Keep in mind the excellent above selections and be sure to check out the Florida-Friendly Landscaping Plant Guide for more possibilities!  Happy Gardening!